by Nick Trout
“Because it was the daughter’s fault.”
“What?”
“It was Charlie. I suspect she’s been overfeeding Marmalade.”
“But why?” she whispers.
I take a deep breath because this is way out of my comfort zone.
“I’m guessing she wanted to prove a point. No matter how much she overfed Marmalade, no matter how bloated and slovenly the cat got, you never stopped loving her. Could you say the same about your daughter?”
By the look on Dr. Honey’s face, that was as uncomfortable for her as it was for me. She turns away and takes a moment before grabbing a napkin as a makeshift handkerchief. Head down, a subtle rhythmic shudder of her shoulders is the only outward sign of her crying.
“It was Charlie who got me into this,” I say, ready to explain everything.
Dr. Honey spins around to face me, tears running down her cheeks, napkin balled up in a clenched fist.
“Charlie?” she says in disbelief.
“I know she meant you no harm. I think she thought I could help.”
“I don’t understand. Who are you?”
I try to stand up straight, firing-squad stiff, bracing for my punishment.
“I’m Cyrus Mills. Dr. Cyrus Mills. Actually we spoke on the phone the other—”
That’s as far as I get. Whatever made me think I’d be the victim of a well-deserved slap across my cheek? Had I known Winn Honey’s personal trainer was big into martial arts and kick-boxing I would have delivered my explanation in an email. Instead I’m dropped, laid out flat by a roundhouse kick to the side of my temple.
Saturday
17
THE WEATHERMAN WARNED OF A “DUSTING” OF snow in the afternoon, which around these parts means anything less than a foot. That’s why I’m hitting the road early, eager to escape a personal forecast that promises lengthy spells of anxiety, bursts of loneliness, and a deluge of self-pity. Rather than brood over last night’s thorny encounter with the veterinary equivalent of Bruce Lee and my pending comeuppance at the Knights of Columbus, it’s time to make a house call I’ve been trying to avoid for far too long.
It’s not easy steering and changing gears when you’ve got a bag of frozen peas pressed into your left temple. Still, the swelling from Dr. Honey’s karate chop is beginning to subside. I wish the same could be said for the tension between us. Before midnight I received a text from Charlie.
Mom’s really mad!
I waited for more, but that was all she wrote. Maybe Charlie’s phone was confiscated or maybe she sided with her mom, making me their common enemy.
Stash comes along for the ride. Thanks to Chief Matt Devito, our mystery man with the pacemaker is still John Doe and Stash’s provenance remains unknown. Fine by me, and not just because I’m more than happy to look after a homeless Australian labradoodle. It’s also that, in light of my recent emotional… challenges… I am appreciating a straightforward, transparent relationship with a dog.
I pull into Garvey’s Nursery and Garden Center and park in the same spot as before, up by the farmhouse, but this time Stash and I walk the trail that leads to the main barn alone. No need of my doctorin’ bag. There’s no remedy for the message I’m about to deliver.
Before heading out I sat down with Lewis to discuss what I was going to say. I reviewed the facts of the case and tied them to the scientific data I had unearthed, and by the end of my presentation, not only did Lewis buy my argument, he agreed that we had an obligation to go public. Though he offered to join me, I told him this one was mine.
“If there are going to be fireworks,” I said, “might as well blame the guy who lit the fuse.”
Stash and I pass the outlying greenhouses and the petting zoo, dormant until spring, the clearing where they hope to groom a tubing park, and the snowy silhouette of the mini-golf’s windmill. I feel like the heartless demolition man, here to erase the soul of three generations and an Eden Falls institution. Worse still, there’s a second unsuspecting victim in this case. That’s why I set up a date with the psychotic bovine, Ermintrude, her owner, Mike, and her ailing caregiver, Trey.
As soon as we enter the barn, my nostrils are overcome by the earthy, methane-laden steam heat of tightly clustered animals, my ears are assaulted by a command that reverberates in the post-and-beam heavens overhead.
“Get that dog on a leash.”
It’s a while before I see the man in the olive green jumpsuit, black beanie on his head, and familiar mirror sunglasses climbing down from a ziggurat of small, square, neatly stacked hay bales, lugging a pair toward one of the stalls. It’s a perfectly reasonable request, until you appreciate that I don’t have a leash on me and Stash walks to heel like he’s the best of show. The doodle hasn’t flinched once at the scurrying sheep or the hawking llamas. It’s obvious he’s totally unconcerned—eyes front, steady gait. Either aloof or bored stiff; it’s hard to tell.
“Stash, stay,” I command, and, without missing a beat, without turning to check, I keep walking, eyes on Mike Garvey the Third, watching him stop in his tracks, impressed enough to drop his bales and stare in awe.
“Ignore the dog, Mr. Garvey, and the dog will ignore you and your livestock. He’s a highly trained dog. He won’t be a bother, I promise. Your father on his way?”
Stash stands in the middle of the barn’s central aisle, staring at me with perfect tunnel vision. You’ve got to love this dog. Trey is clearly impressed, and, truth be told, I am too.
Garvey grunts (at least I think it was Garvey and not the Gloucester old spot pig behind him) and marches over to Ermintrude’s stall, cutting the orange nylon cord that binds the hay with a penknife and teasing it into mouth-sized wads to scatter in the trough on the other side of the railing. The Jersey stands in the shadows, head in the corner, trembling and disinterested.
“Something came up. He’s not coming, and I’m busy,” says Trey, brushing past me, nostrils flaring with disdain, returning to the haystack, climbing up and picking off the next layer. Does he hate me, veterinarians, or all human life-forms?
“But Mr. Garvey, you and your father suggested this time, not me.”
He hesitates, inhales deeply, releases a throaty growl, and carries on distributing a bale to the goats, another to the sheep, before stomping back to grab more. Trey appears as focused as Stash, but unlike the disciplined labradoodle, obsessive-compulsive demons are at play. It seems this task must be completed before he can chat, and, from the looks of things, the bales are picked off in a precise order to whittle down the stack. No doubt the fodder is delivered in exactly the same order to each of the different livestock every day of the week. Clearly, Trey is a creature of habit.
I wait at Ermintrude’s stall, the one nearest the haystack, serenaded by the repetitive coo of squatter pigeons, and try to get a read on the patient.
Cows perform over forty thousand jaw movements every day, but not this cow. She spooks and shudders sideways when I clap my hands. It’s heartbreaking to see her xylophone rib cage, her spine craggy and sharp, slack muscle slung across bone, her sunken eyes, feral and beseeching. Then something moves in the shadows next to her, a bird maybe. She flinches, backs up, and I notice a small amount of green discharge forming a crusty halo around her left nostril.
“You still here,” says Trey, marching over, palm clasped to his forehead like he’s either forgotten something or his headache is back with a vengeance. “Speak to Dad, not me.”
“But this concerns you, Mr. Garvey, as much as it concerns Ermintrude.”
Trey straightens up, works a grubby index finger into his chin dimple (how does he angle a razor into that cleft?), and then, dipping his head enough to study me over the top of his sunglasses, says, “I ain’t no cow.”
“Actually cows are eighty percent genetically similar to humans.”
Trey gives me a look like that figure might be on the low side.
“Hey, got anything for a migraine?”
“No,” I reply, ignor
ing the déjà vu. “How long has the cow had a nasal discharge?”
Trey says nothing.
I try again. “A snotty nose.”
It’s hard to tell whether his silence is based on ignorance or irritation.
“Look, I’m no expert on farm animals, but your father asked me to find out what’s wrong with Ermintrude. I have a diagnosis, and it concerns you too.”
“Why me? I just look after her.”
“I realize that, but your diseases are inextricably linked. You have what she has, and vice versa.”
“So she’s contagious?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking. I’m not talking about a bacteria or a virus, I’m talking about an infectious protein, something called a prion.”
“Sounds like a type of foreign car.”
I’m pretty sure Trey’s not trying to be funny. Jaw twitching, hands constantly on the move, shuffling side to side like a boxer waiting for the fight to begin—he’s a nervous wreck.
“Prions are tough, really tough, can’t be killed by disinfectants, can’t be destroyed by normal cooking techniques. You know what scientists call prions?”
I’m not planning on waiting for an answer, but Trey shakes his head all the same.
“Immortal.”
He takes a step back, and I know I have his attention. Now, how best to explain?
“I did a lot of research and tried not to come up with this answer. I took my time, weighed the history, the signs, the available diagnostic evidence. But I kept returning to the clinical similarities between you and the cow.”
I want to rip off his sunglasses so I can get some kind of visual feedback. Watching my own awkwardness in the mirrors is not helping.
“You both dislike sunlight. Ermintrude presses her head into corners because, like you, she suffers from migraines, and according to your father you’ve both been acting a little…” Careful, Cyrus. “A little different. Not yourself.”
His stillness has me more worried than his silence.
“You deserve to be the first to know, and either I can talk to your family or you can, whatever you think best, but when I leave here, I will be calling the State Veterinary Board. In a matter of hours, your parking lot will be full of camera crews, reporters, and network helicopters circling the skies overhead.”
“Am I about to be famous?”
He seems to have brightened.
“In a way, yes. See there’s only been one other case like this in the entire United States and that was over a decade ago. It cost the American Beef Industry billions in lost exports. And that case originated in Canada as well.”
“Canada?”
“Ermintrude’s mother. She was imported from Canada, right? Started acting strange, slaughtered on the farm, and, as your grandma told me, ‘Nothing went to waste, nothing.’ Ermintrude’s mother was patient zero, the source of the prions, the infected proteins. Some of her tainted body parts must have gotten into the food chain, a chain thankfully confined to your family and your livestock. I don’t know whether your juvenile diabetes put you at greater risk, and I’m not sure why you would be immunocompromised, but you and Ermintrude must have consumed contaminated beef. Nothing would have happened for years, the prions lying dormant in your brains, waiting for their moment, taking their time, starting off slowly, causing a little depression, mood swings, a little clumsiness, working their way up to relentless migraines that laugh in the face of Advil. But they’re immortal, remember, they cannot be stopped, and in a little over a year from the time of diagnosis, they’ll…”
“They’ll what?”
I swallow. For all the tens of thousands of cancers I’ve diagnosed during my career I’ve never been the doctor who delivers the bad news, forced to witness the crippling power of a few well-chosen words. I’m led to believe there’s an art to it, a need to cut to the chase.
“They’ll kill you. You might live with the disease for a year or so, but it’s always fatal.”
He should be hearing this from his family physician, not the new vet in town.
“Enough already, what have I got?”
“Trey, I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure, not one hundred percent, but high nineties—”
“What?” he screams.
“Mad cow disease,” I blurt out, causing him to rock on his heels.
“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.” Trey appears lost in a recollection, his face hardening into a frown. “You’re a hundred percent certain that the only way I could have gotten this disease was by eating Clover?”
“Correct,” I reply. “I’m afraid so.”
The guffaw he releases comes from deep within; uncoiling from a titter to a boom, hearty and genuine, causing him to double over, stagger backward, and pick himself up.
This is not the reaction I was expecting.
He removes his glasses, and for the first time I see his eyes—hazel, bloodshot, and wet. Catching his breath, Trey wipes away tears with the backs of his hands.
“I’m a vegetarian, Doc. Have been since my freshman year at college, a year before Clover died. Never ate beef since. I can’t speak for Ermintrude, but if she and me have the same thing, it ain’t mad cow.”
As I stand there, feeling as dumb as I must look, watching his eyes transition from relief to indignation, an enormous bird poop, sloppy and flecked with green, splashes on the center of my forehead, a milky bindi dribbling down my face.
Trey loses it, gasping for air, at risk of peeing his jumpsuit.
Fortunately I’m carrying a handkerchief.
“Should have worn a hat, Doc. Still, supposed to be good luck.” Then he winces, driving his fingertips deep into the bridge of his nose, as if stabbed by another round of sinus pain. The Trey that comes back is exasperated and ready to explode.
“You’d best go before I start to think about how my dad’s spending good money on an animal doctor who wants to give his son a fatal brain-eating disease.”
“Now, Mr. Garvey, I never meant to—”
Spittle hits my face before the shriek reaches my ears. “I said go.”
I take a step backward, determined not to wipe off the spritzed saliva on my chin, and look over at Stash. He’s not moved, but he has changed his focus. His head angles up, checking out the birds perched on the rafters above. I follow his gaze up to the hundreds of pigeons roosting in the beams.
The Gloucester old spot pig waddles over to the railing—white with big black spots. The black dog in the aisle—not a single white splotch anywhere.
Pigeons. Pooping pigeons. But where, exactly, are they pooping?
Without saying a word I march down to the other end of the barn and slowly work my way back, checking out the stalls and the flooring for traces of avian fecal matter. And then, though I’m a little slower than Stash, I see what’s been going on.
“Please, Mr. Garvey, just answer this question and then I promise I’ll leave. When you feed Ermintrude, do you follow the exact same routine as I witnessed today?”
Trey growls but his reluctant shrug makes me press on.
“You feed Ermintrude first, right? She always gets the top, outer layer of hay?”
“Yeah.”
“And the other livestock gets the deeper layers, not outer bales, always deeper.”
“What’s your point? I like to keep things neat.”
“My point is you’re feeding Ermintrude hay that’s covered in pigeon droppings. The bales from underneath are protected by the top layer that always gets fed to Ermintrude because she gets fed first.”
“And what, there’s a Prius in the bird poop?”
“No, not a prion, a fungus. Coccidioidomycosis. You can inhale it into your lungs or your sinuses, and then, if you’re unlucky, it can work its way into your brain. Damn! That’s why she’s got the snotty nose. That’s why you’ve got the migraines, the sensitivity to light, and that’s why you’re a little clumsy.”
Trey appears taken aback.
“That’s why you failed a
sobriety test even though you tested negative for alcohol.”
“I told Devito I never smoke pot, but he wouldn’t believe me.”
In the moment it takes Trey to relive his encounter with the chief, I glance over at the cow, meeting her big brown eyes and wanting to apologize. This is not about my failings as a farm animal vet. This is about manipulating the signs to fit a concept floating inside my head. This is about humility, my misdiagnosis as stupid as my correct one was inspired.
“This cocci-whatever, it’s not going to kill me, is it?”
“No, but you need to be on the right medications. Get over to the emergency room in Patton, tell them you want to be tested for… Forget it, I’ll write it down. Here, if you’re positive, we’ll treat Ermintrude the same way. Oh, and you’re going to need to get rid of your pigeon problem. No more photo ops with the bird feed, okay?”
If I’m expecting a smile or a grateful handshake, it never comes. Hopefully those social miscues can be corrected. Then again, who am I to talk?
“How much?” asks Trey, suddenly dead serious, sunglasses back in place like he’s ready to play poker.
“Forget it. I’m sorry I screwed up. After the mental anguish I put you through, there’s no charge for the visit.”
Garvey twists his lips off to one side. “No, no,” he says, shoving a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Stash. “I’m asking about the dog. How much do you want for her?”
Stash held his ground the whole time. Twenty yards away and we still have direct eye contact. He’s like a diagnostic talisman—first a collie, now a cow.
“Sorry, Mr. Garvey, but you couldn’t pay me enough. The dog is not for sale.”
18
AS I ROLL INTO THE PACKED PARKING LOT OF THE Knights of Columbus Banquet and Reception Hall I’m greeted by an illuminated sign that claims this facility is PERFECT FOR PARTIES, WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES, AND FUNERAL LUNCHEONS. Given my present state of mind, all three options sound anything but “perfect.” Obviously I’m not in a party mood (okay, I rarely am), and if Amy’s celebrating thirteen years of marriage to her Italian lover (it’s lace and yes, I looked it up) you can count me out. Also, two forty-five in the afternoon seems a little late for lunch. So what does that leave me with? That’s right, a funeral, and though I’m sure Dr. Honey would love to bury me alive, the only practice headed for that big clinic in the sky is Healthy Paws.
